


greater than suns or stars

by elegantstupidity



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: 5+1 Things, Arranged Marriage, Developing Relationship, F/M, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27787948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantstupidity/pseuds/elegantstupidity
Summary: As it happened, marrying a stranger was no easier for having known more than half her life that this would be her fate.Or: Five things Kaddar gives Kally in their first year of marriage and one she gives him.
Relationships: Kaddar Iliniat/Kalasin of Conté
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	greater than suns or stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mistrali](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistrali/gifts).



> Title from "Passage to India" by Walt Whitman, which is roughly? tangentially? thematically appropriate.
> 
> I really cherrypicked with the word of god stuff that I included just because.

**January 1, 461 HE  
Dawnrose Suite and Imperial Throne Room, New Palace, Thak City**

In the lush apartments she wouldn’t occupy after tonight, a bevy of maids danced attendance on Princess Kalasin of Conté and her entourage, arranging hair and face paints and helping to dress the ladies for the grandest event in the entirety of the Carthak Empire since the coronation of Emperor Kaddar ten years ago. Finally, the empire would have an empress once again. 

In the excitement—swirling gowns and passing trays of dainty refreshments and the jumble of friendly, eager discussion—the future empress’s prolonged silence went largely unnoticed. 

Chatter, kindly meant but altogether inconsequential, washed over Kalasin. She caught scraps of it as her long, dark hair was brushed to a burnished gleam and her eyes lined with kohl. 

“… longer or shorter than Roald and Shinko’s?”

“Longer. Much longer.”

“You don’t suppose anyone would notice if—”

“Lianne. You will not bring a book to your sister’s…”

"... heard he sent his youngest brother to make a match for himself."

"There's nothing like a wedding to beget another. Lucky you were chosen..."

"... too much? I'm already wearing a brooch."

"Here? I doubt anyone in the empire has ever said no to another gem..."

“… fortunate that the weather is so fine. Surely it is an omen from Mithros himself for the sun to shine so brightly on this day.”

Privately, Kally thought that in a land that regularly suffered droughts and was still recuperating from the last great famine, the appearance of the blazing sun after a week of steady rain could only be called a mixed blessing at best. Having no desire to hear her mother’s sigh or the resulting moment of awkward, tense silence before one of her ladies took up the thread of conversation like it was but a dropped stitch once more, she knew better than to give voice to this opinion.

So Kalasin’s silence continued, even when her maid murmured, “Do you wish to make any changes, Your Highness?”

Opening her eyes, Kally had little choice but to regard her reflection in the ornately wrought mirror before her. 

Her whole life, she’d been told she favored her father. With the clear, blue eyes and black hair of so many Contés before her, it wasn’t difficult to see why. Today, however, taking in the paint on her face—brighter and more vivid than was considered strictly appropriate for a young lady in Tortall—and the jewels cleverly strewn through her hair like stars in the midnight sky—more diamonds than even her mother wore for the grandest events at home—Kally only saw Thayet. Another royal bride brought to a foreign land to wed and rule.

Truly, she was her mother’s daughter.

“Kalasin?”

Thayet’s voice drew Kally reluctantly from her thoughts. She blinked and shook her head, offering her relieved maid a demure smile and avoiding her mother’s concerned look in the mirror.

“Is it time to put on your dress, then?” asked Vania, sounding more enthusiastic than she had about anything regarding her sister’s wedding. Then again, it had been months since Kalasin’s youngest sister had offered, utterly serious, to help her escape into the hills of Tyra or Tusaine, so perhaps she simply had come around.

(In her bemusement, Kally had demanded to know how Vania planned to accomplish such a feat. Her sister had just shrugged and replied, “I’m sure Uncle George would help. Well, probably. If not him, then definitely Aly.”

Rather than acknowledge the truth in her youngest sister's reasoning, or admit to having considered it once or twice herself, Kally had just said, "And I'm sure both Uncle George and Aly have better things to do than worry about runaway princesses.")

Obligingly, Kalasin rose and disappeared behind a screen to don the gown that an entire team of seamstresses had worked on for months to complete. They had still been sewing as the ship arrived on the shores of Carthak. As the yards and yards of fabric draped over her, falling in impossibly light folds for all the minute beads and embroideries worked into every inch, she had to admit it had been well worth the effort. An odd mix of Carthaki and Tortallan styles, the dress was striking for its strangeness. Dyers must have toiled long and hard to achieve the gradual fade from a deep, midnight blue at the collar to the delicate shade of a winter horizon at the trailing hem. The skirts were narrower than the sweeping ball gowns so popular in Corus but had enough volume to swish pleasantly as Kalasin lifted one foot and then the other as a maid secured her sandals. Insubstantial as air, it took a long moment for all the layers to settle once they'd been disturbed, and hardly any effort at all to send them stirring again.

It was strange to wear something so light, not least because it was January and there had been snow dusting the streets of Port Caynn when she’d set sail for Carthak. 

After all, Kalasin was accustomed to the heavy velvets and silks of her parents’ wardrobes. The mantle of state, quite literally, had always been heavy, the weight a constant reminder of a monarch’s duty.

Did it mean anything, then, that she would become an empress in a dress practically designed to flutter and float?

It was a worry that had plagued Kally. In marrying Emperor Kaddar, would she take the throne as his equal, as her parents were? Or would she simply be a figurehead, destined to welcome foreign dignitaries and set trends by virtue of what she decided to wear on any given morning? By all accounts, Carthak trended far more conservative than Tortall, and what progressivism her home enjoyed had been instituted over vocal and not insignificant protest; even now, decades into their reign, there were plenty who wished the queen of Tortall was less involved in matters of politics. From the little that she knew of Emperor Kaddar, he seemed reasonable. However, she was not so naive to think that the letters they had exchanged since their marriage was arranged so many years ago painted a wholly accurate picture of the man. Or that he even wrote his own correspondence. It was one thing for a princess, generally unoccupied but for her lessons, to spend her time writing to her betrothed. To expect an emperor to actually write back, let alone read and care about the things she sent?

She sighed. If she had not come to terms with this in all the years she had known she would one day become Empress of Carthak, it seemed unlikely that she would resolve the matter on her wedding day. 

Instead, Kally straightened her shoulders, bared by the sweeping neckline of her wedding gown, and stepped out into the room once again.

Her ladies sighed and her sisters nodded their approval, Lianne even deigning to look up from her treatise on classical Barzunni philosophy, but it was Thayet’s smile that Kally looked to first. Both proud and wistful, her mother’s expression was a balm to any doubt clouding her convictions. 

“Well, my girl,” she said, smile warming to a more familiar grin, “I suppose it’s time to really make you shine.”

From behind her back, Thayet drew forth a glittering necklace, seed pearls and shards of diamonds interspersed with blue gems arranged around a magnificent cousin, its brilliant blue broken by a distinctive starburst: the Conté sapphires.

Kally’s breath caught in her throat. How many times had she seen those sapphires grace her mother's neck and how many more had she begged to wear them herself? That her one chance to do so came just in time for her to give up her right to the Conté legacy was all too fitting now that she made her new home in a country with a trickster for a patron. Well, she may have had to sign away her place in her family—legally, she had only severed her right to the throne, but it hadn’t felt that way as she signed her name below her mother and father’s—but she could have this. 

Before she could go to her mother, let her secure the jewels that Kally had so admired her whole life around her neck, there was a knock at the suite’s door.

Kally didn’t quite frown, but she had no idea who it could be. It was too early for her father to have arrived to escort her down to the ceremony, and she doubted either of her younger brothers would be so bored to venture here, the epicenter of all things distressingly feminine in their eyes. Who would come visit her now?

No one, as it turned out. 

When one of her ladies opened the door, they found a palace servant, wearing the lapis lazuli and gold insignia of the emperor’s personal household. 

“A gift from His Imperial Majesty for Her Royal Highness,” announced the footman, bowing low as another brought in a chest, its dark wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. For its size, the box made a suspiciously heavy _thunk_ as it was set on a table, and they all soon saw why. 

The footmen departed as swiftly as they’d arrived, leaving the women in the room to regard the unexpected delivery.

“I suppose you should see what’s inside, my dear.”

Up close, it was possible to see that the chest was not just inlaid, but beautifully, intricately carved as well. Kalasin’s fingers trailed over winding vines dotted with minute blooms and leaves, each perfect and smooth, before lifting the lid. 

“Oh,” she breathed.

Over her shoulders, she felt the warm press of her friends and family peering curiously past her and into the depths of the chest. By their silence, she supposed they were as stunned as she was. Kally could hardly blame them. 

She was a princess, no stranger to glittering gems set in shining silver and gold. Her own jewelry box likely held a king’s ransom. 

This one, however, held an emperor’s.

Staring at the collection of shining gold, Kally couldn't but notice every ring and bracelet and earbob, each arrayed on dark velvet to make their gems gleam. None of them, however, drew her eye like the heavy necklace, each panel of gold beaten thin and smooth to lie flat against her chest and shoulders and down her back, in pride of place at the center of all the treasures. However delicate it looked—even trailing fine chains and dripping diamonds, it gave off an unmistakable air of grace—she was sure it would not feel that way once it settled around her neck.

Clearly, in Carthak, the weight of responsibility was worn not in fabric, but metal and stone. 

“Am I to wear all this?” she asked, unsure that she had enough limbs to carry it all. There certainly were not enough holes in her ears for all the earbobs and buttons collected before her. 

“Not unless you want to blind all the guests,” Lianne observed dryly. 

“But you should still choose some,” their mother said, casting her middle daughter a chiding look. Blithely, Lianne ignored it. “It is a generous bride-gift, and it is always good to show your appreciation.”

Skeptical that she truly did appreciate more jewelry than most women might wear in a lifetime, particularly when her bridal accessories had already been agonized over by anyone from her ladies-in-waiting to her mother to the Master of Etiquette back in Corus, Kalasin nonetheless acquiesced.

When all was said and done, she was adorned in more jewels than she’d ever worn before, but the gold necklace remained nestled in its lining. The Conté sapphires sparkled at her throat. A diaphanous white veil, so sheer it did little to obscure the finery beneath, was arranged to fall over her hair and trailing skirts. She was perfumed and powdered, each fold and drape of her gown fussed over until she was pronounced by all to be utter perfection. 

Only then did another knock come at the door. This time it opened to admit her father, King Jonathan IV. 

Her ladies and sisters all curtsied to their king and filed out of the suite with a flurry of well wishes. In their wake, he greeted his wife, kissing her fingertips and looking at her as though it was their wedding day. 

Soon, sooner than she would like, even her mother left, embracing Kalasin and murmuring in low, fierce K’miri, “Shoot down the stars, my splendid girl. If anyone can, it is you.”

Then, it was time to go. 

On her father’s arm, Kalasin wound her way through the palace that was one ceremony away from becoming her home. 

As they walked, her father studied her; she could feel the weight of his gaze on her face even as she kept her own eyes stubbornly fixed ahead. 

“I think you will be happy, Kally,” he said as they approached the massive doors leading into the throne room. Even through the thick teak, she could hear the low rumble of the gathered guests, dignitaries and nobility from the farthest reaches of the empire and Eastern Lands and their neighbors across the Emerald Sea. All come to witness her marriage to the emperor. “He is as good and decent a ruler as I have ever met.”

Once again, Kally swallowed down her thoughts—good and decent rulers did not always make for good and decent husbands—because there was a time and a place for a princess to voice her opinion, and at the head of the matrimonial aisle was neither. She tipped her chin up, just a hair higher, flirting with the line between pride and stubbornness.

On some unseen signal, the attendants threw open the great doors and revealed the bride to all and one. 

The assemblage sighed. Of course the daughter of Thayet _jian_ Wilima and Jonathan of Conté was utterly lovely. In her presence, for just a moment, matters of politics and instability and infighting fell to the wayside.

As all turned to take in the future empress, she was the only one left to inspect the lone figure awaiting her at the end of the aisle.

If Kalasin, in her shades of blue and the shimmering cloud of her veil, was the sky, then there was no mistaking Emperor Kaddar for anything but the sun.

Resplendent in cloth-of-gold and crimson, with only accents of cream to soften the glory of his attire, Kaddar cut an impressive figure standing before his throne atop the dais at the end of the hall.

An impressive figure who would soon be her husband.

Her father, Gods bless him, did not urge her into movement when Kally stood frozen on the threshold. He held still as her fingers tightened on his sleeve and she drew in a deep, bracing breath. 

As it happened, marrying a stranger was no easier for having known more than half her life that this would be her fate.

Uncommonly patient, Jonathan waited for his daughter to set her shoulders and step forward. He had no doubts that she would.

Neither, in truth, did Kalasin. Though some untamed part of herself that had dreamed of life as a roving knight or taking her pony and learning to thrive in the mountains like her K’mir ancestors wanted her to, the time for running was long past.

Instead, she simply strode into the future.

At the end of the aisle, her father pressed a kiss to her forehead and announced to all that Princess Kalasin of Conté was come to be wed. He handed her up onto the dais to stand before her fiancé and the representatives of the Great Gods.

The ceremony stretched through the afternoon, the high sun arcing through the sky from one side of the crystalline dome that presided over the entirety of the throne room to the other. In the end, all Kalasin really remembered of the proceedings were this:

It was the First Daughter of the Goddess who married them and the High Priest of Mithros who took her oath as Empress of Carthak, the Old Thak buzzing on her tongue and spilling into the air. But it was Kaddar who laid the golden coronet, weighted with diamonds and duty, upon her brow.

He offered her a smile, more a quirk of his lips, that Kally couldn’t help but return. It was the kind of smile that she could see herself coming to like. 

As the attendant holy men and women gave their final blessings over the union and prayed for the Gods’ favor, Kaddar leaned ever so slightly closer to Kalasin. A waft of something green and growing, not strong enough for perfume, hit her nose. Suddenly, the emperor standing beside her was not just a remote, commanding figurehead. Just a man, he was more and less all at once.

“I like the sapphires,” he murmured, nodding to her neck. “They suit you.”

She wasn’t sure if his compliment was a shrouded question—why hadn’t she worn his gift? Given the sheer number of bracelets dangling from her wrists and ankles and curled around her biceps, to say nothing of the rings and swinging earbobs, he could hardly accuse her of snubbing his present—but she answered straightforwardly. 

“Yes, they do.”

His smile deepened, laughter sparking in his bright eyes.

The hall now fell silent as the last invocations were spoken. The wedding and coronation was drawing to a close

His head tilted just barely to the side, a silent invitation. 

Kalasin’s shoulders rose in an infinitesimal shrug in reply.

They turned to the thrones, a matched pair carved from teak and gilded in thick flakes of gold, and took their seats before acknowledging their gathered guests. As one, the crowd rose to applaud the Emperor and Empress of Carthak.

* * *

**April 12, 461 HE  
** **Stables and Veralinar Parkland, New Palace, Thak City**

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like company, Your Majesty? I could wake one of your ladies.”

Kally shook her head. “Go back to bed, Merrayn. You didn’t need to get up in the first place. I can dress myself.”

“And let you traipse about the palace in your brother’s castoffs?” her lady’s maid demanded tartly, well accustomed to Kalasin's antics as a princess and no more willing to let them pass as an empress. “That might fly right at home, but—”

“Yes, yes, this isn’t home,” Kally finished. 

It spoke to their long acquaintance that the maid did nothing more than raise a brow at Kalasin’s acid tongue. Instead, she assured her mistress, “It’ll feel like it soon enough. Don’t forget your veil, now.”

Wrinkling her nose, as that was exactly what Kally had planned, she shooed her yawning maid back into her chamber and set off. If she failed to affix the veil to her hair with enough pins and the sheer covering fell to the ground before she even left her apartments, Kally planned to never admit it was done on purpose. Better to lose it here than let the silly thing tangle her up later. 

Anyway, this early, few stirred in the wide, public halls of the palace. Kalasin was sure the scene was different and decidedly less peaceful in the servants’ corridors and tunnels, but all was quiet as she made her way from the imperial wing to the grounds. As they did every morning, her feet took her not to the lush and beautifully designed gardens that surrounded so much of the palace, but the working heart of the grounds. Home to the kitchen gardens, the imperial household’s guard barracks and training courts, the kennels, and, most importantly, the stables. 

Having walked this path more than any other since her arrival in Carthak, Kally was half-convinced she could do it in her sleep. At least her familiarity with the rest of the palace was quickly catching up; she hardly got lost in the warren of council offices all crushed into the state wing, none willing to give up a presence in the palace or the attendant access to the emperor even if it meant less space, any more. 

That, along with her burgeoning routine, was a sign as much as anything was that Kally was beginning to settle into her new life. 

Which was strange, because, in some senses, it didn’t feel as if she was.

Though there was no one that she could admit it to, married life was not what Kalasin thought it would be. Then again, she likely was not the empress this new court thought she would be. Too much a child of the Eastern Lands, Kally had little patience for what felt like the arbitrary standards of Carthaki modesty and propriety; she was forever forgetting to don a veil as she went about her daily business, leaving her to either hurry back to her apartments to find one or put up with the sniffing, barely concealed, scandalized looks leveled her way at every turn. Just as she was forever running up against the bounds of past empresses’ influences. There were few, according to the histories she'd been given by disapproving advisors, who had taken such an active interest in matters of state.

Well. Kally would learn to adapt—to some of it; she had no intention of planning parties and organizing kindly meant but ineffective charity endeavors only to neglect the policy that necessitated those endeavors in the first place for the entirety of her reign—and so would they.

In truth, the duties of the empress, for she had not spent years of her girlhood studying the intricacies of political economy and administration for fun, gave her less trouble than her responsibility as a wife. As empress, she had advisors and precedent and centuries of history, to say nothing of her own upbringing and beliefs, to guide her. Even in an empire as unsettled as Carthak, pockets still wobbling on the verge between discontent and outright rebellion a decade after the downfall of Ozorne, the realities of ruling were a familiar companion to Kalasin.

Less familiar, for all she’d grown up around plenty of happy couples, were the realities of marriage.

Living on the same continent at least had transformed Kaddar from a vague notion of a person to someone with more definition in her mind’s eye. If nothing else, actually laying eyes on the man rather than relying on a portrait and recollections from Daine and her Aunt Alanna ten years out of date solved that issue. It was difficult to maintain a vague mental picture of a man who had kissed her before a crowd of hundreds and under the eye of the Gods. (To say nothing of what they had done much later that evening, when they’d been shut into the emperor’s suite for their wedding night. After that, perhaps she saw him a bit too vividly.) But she certainly couldn’t say she knew him. She hardly saw him, and only rarely in anything resembling privacy.

They sat beside each other as they presided over court functions and shared meetings with various chancellors and representatives of Carthak’s vast empire. They shared polite conversations over meals and among the younger set of nobles and academics who were Kaddar’s particular friends. They learned bits and pieces about one another in the moments of privacy they were afforded, but it was slow going. With the whole of their lives laid out before them, slow was not the worst possible fate.

Besides, it was a matter of far more urgency to solidify their rule and quiet the rumblings of discontent in the empire. 

It was more important for Kalasin to become an empress rather than the emperor’s wife.

She was the leader of a country she did not fully understand, but that did not mean that Kalasin was so arrogant as to think that she knew best. She was willing to change to better serve the people of the empire. Already, Carthaki fashions dominated her wardrobe and she routinely wore enough jewelry to feed a family for several years. She held her tongue in policy meetings, especially when her own instincts ran at cross-purposes to the emperor’s. She had not insisted on working in any of Thak City’s healer’s wings, though she had routinely done so at home. 

Kally was no stranger to compromise and duty. 

Yet she would not be diverted from this, her one, true indulgence.

If she chose to visit the stables for her daily ride just after dawn, when anyone out and about was more likely to think well of her industry than look down on her unladylike pursuits, then she considered that a compromise of its own. The fact that it was often too hot to ride any later in the day, especially for poor Wildfire who was still unaccustomed to the heat of the Southern Lands, did not, in her estimation, undermine her magnanimity. 

Slipping into the stables, the scent of hay and warm horseflesh as familiar as her reflection in the mirror, Kally was relieved to find no line of bowing hostlers to greet her this morning. 

None of them seemed to begrudge her her time with Wildfire, they simply didn’t know what to do with an empress in the stables. The first few weeks, there had been many an offer to help groom the big chestnut gelding and was Her Imperial Majesty sure she wanted to saddle him herself? One of the grooms would surely exercise him for her. It took countless aggressively cheerful—which faded into unfortunately blunt the more times she had to repeat herself—assurances that she would care for her horse without help, thank you, to convince any of them that she would not suddenly change her mind and dress them down for neglecting Wildfire.

Which did not mean, of course, that they had stopped checking altogether. 

Still, it seemed that today was her lucky day as she made it to Wildfire’s stall without any stablehands doing more than bow as she passed.

“Hello, beautiful,” she murmured. 

The tall gelding’s ears flicked forward as he whickered a greeting of his own. His head emerged from his stall, nose lowering unerringly to the pockets in Kalasin’s loose breeches. Laughingly, she fished out the apple she’d brought and handed it over. By the time she’d collected his brushes and slid into his stall it was gone. 

He craned his neck around to her other pocket, nosing at the second apple waiting there. 

“None of that,” Kally ordered, efficiently brushing out his coat. “You can have it when we get back.”

Wildfire blew out a hot puff of air and stamped his back foot. 

“Oh, you doubt me?” she laughed, feeling the weight of her responsibility fall from her shoulders. She’d pick it up again in an hour when she and Wildfire returned from their ride. But for that hour, she wanted to fly. “Then, maybe I should make you earn your treat, Master Glutton.”

Rather than reply—and Kally was sure that her horse, after prolonged exposure to Daine the Wildmage, was more than capable of a full conversation even with her limited understanding—Wildfire’s head swung around to the aisle to inspect whoever had come to interrupt Kalasin’s peaceful morning.

With his large body between her and the front of his box, Kally took a moment to bite down on the frustrated huff that swelled in her lungs. The stablehands would come to accept her presence with time. 

Still, she could not keep the edge out of her tone when, exasperated, she said, “I assure you, Nati, I am not in need of your assistance.” She regretted it immediately—snapping at the poor boy would not convince him any nobility, let alone an Imperial Majesty, could be treated with anything but the utmost deference—but the fact that she hadn’t also snapped, “Now, go away!” was all the triumph she could ask for. 

Peering over her horse’s withers, already prepared to apologize and offer the boy a grin, Kally startled. 

If this was how the hostlers felt whenever they found her in their domain, perhaps she would have to learn to better curb her annoyance. Because it _was_ wholly strange to look up and find the emperor, even dressed casually and merely adorned with jewels rather than positively dripping with them, anywhere as ordinary as the stables. 

“You’re not Nati,” she observed, unable to come up with anything more astute. Distantly, Kally was aware that he had never seen her dressed so informally, certainly never without a veil. She beat down the urge to smooth her hair or straighten her tunic, which was at least much nicer than the one she’d stolen from Roald years ago. 

“No, I am not,” Kaddar agreed easily. If he had any objection to her attire, nothing about his relaxed posture gave him away. “Have you had problems with him?”

“No!” she exclaimed. Kaddar might not be as strict as some monarchs, and certainly not as much as his predecessor, but she doubted anything good could come to the poor boy who simply wanted the best for Wildfire if she admitted she found his suspicion overbearing. “He is a dedicated stablehand.”

“Who is likely convinced no noble could lead a horse to water with both reins in their hands.”

Kally bit her lip and refused to agree. She also neglected to refute him.

Tactfully changing the subject, Kaddar offered Wildfire his flat palm as he asked, “And who is this fine fellow?”

When he realized that, emperor or not, the newcomer had no tempting treats for him, Wildfire turned back to Kally and flicked his tail dismissively. 

“Wildfire,” Kally said, introduction and admonition both. “He has quite the high opinion of himself. There weren’t many horses back in Corus who had him beat for speed.”

Giving him an assessing once over, no doubt taking in long, powerful legs and a sleekly muscled chest, Kaddar said, “I don’t doubt it. Do you always ride so early?”

“Every morning,” she replied, quite sure that he knew this already. Even if he didn’t go looking for information on her routine and habits, if his friends and attendants were even half as dedicated to gossip as Kally’s, there was no doubt he was already well informed on her comings and goings.

Sure enough, he simply nodded, utterly unsurprised. “Would you mind company this morning?”

“Of course not,” she said, automatic. It was better that way. If she gave herself time to think, she might find that she didn’t mean it.

He grinned, suddenly a young man rather than a ruler with a decade of service under his belt. Kally felt her cheeks heat. Never mind the man was already her husband and she’d met plenty of handsome ones in her life, she wasn’t immune to the charms of one turned on her. Ducking her head, she returned to brushing Wildfire. His coat might already gleam, but it gave her something better than Kaddar’s uncommonly sweet smile to focus on. 

“Thank you,” he said, and she peeked up at him from beneath her lashes, offering a smile. He stared for a moment, lips parting to give Kally just a glimpse of pink tongue, before he blinked once and then a few times in a row. “I’ll see you out in the yard when you’re ready.” And then he was striding away, no doubt to have his own horse readied.

With no one but Wildfire to see, Kally didn’t bother to hide her grin as she finished his grooming and saddled him, hands moving without much input from her head she’d done it so often. Once he was bridled, she led him from his stall and out into the wide yard.

Kaddar was already waiting, though he had a hostler hold the reins of his mare to gallantly toss Kally into her saddle. She didn’t bother to tell him she’d been mounting Wildfire unassisted since she was fourteen and convinced her parents she would grow into the horse’s height. Kally had grown a bare half-inch in the five years since, but she hadn't let that stop her. Kaddar’s hands were warm and gentle on her leg, though they certainly didn’t linger as long as anyone might expect from a man newly wed.

Astride Wildfire, with a good ride in her immediate future, Kally couldn’t bring herself to mind. Whether Kaddar was simply shy in a way her own royal parents were not or simply more circumspect, she wasn’t going to begrudge him a little discretion.

Once he was mounted, they set off into gardens. Thankfully, Kaddar did not turn onto one of the carefully maintained paths, but rather set a course that would take them quickly beyond the manicured lawns and topiaries and into the wilder scrubland set beyond the palace ground’s borders. 

When Kalasin had first heard the name given to the great swath of park, she’d raised a single eyebrow. Reading her unasked question, Kaddar had dryly replied, “It only seemed appropriate. The Old Palace grounds are still being converted to a wildlife sanctuary, but I imagine one day, it will bear her name, too.”

Considering Veralidaine Sarrasri had been “diplomatically encouraged” to remain in Tortall rather than accompany the wedding delegation, Kally hadn’t been sure what to say. When she’d written to her friend about it, she’d gotten a response that made no secret of the Wildmage’s amusement and decided that was enough answer for her. Besides, it likely never hurt to curry the favor of a demigoddess.

While it might not be the Royal Forest or even the Great Southern Desert where Kalasin had first learned to ride, the untamed wilderness around her still pulled at those memories. 

Sensing his rider’s levity, Wildfire pranced and sidled. She knew she should rein him in, be a polite riding partner, but part of her was eager to give him his head. 

“Do you ride out here often?” Kaddar asked, looking far more settled than Kally felt. 

“Here, but parts of Thak City and the university, as well. The gardens are lovely, but it seems a shame to let this brute tear through the flowerbeds just because he needs his exercise.”

“My gardeners and the flowerbeds thank you,” he said dryly. “And I do, too. Some of those specimens were difficult to cultivate.”

“You do that yourself?” she asked, though in retrospect, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Neither of her own parents might give much thought other than passing appreciation to any of the gardens’ compositions, but neither were they university-trained plant mages.

Kaddar shrugged. “When I have the time, which isn’t often. But whenever I’m sure I can’t review another trade agreement, I go and impose myself on the Head Groundskeeper to go over his latest improvements. He can hardly turn me away.”

“It’s good to have something you enjoy so much,” she offered, almost positive that last comment was a joke but not wanting to laugh if it wasn’t.

“Of course,” he said, equally polite and not quite as jovial. “May I assume that riding is yours?”

“How ever did you guess?” Kally teased, hoping to stoke some more of his good humor.

“You are certainly an excellent rider,” said Kaddar, voice frankly admiring. 

Kalasin could do nothing to mitigate the flush rising on her cheeks, especially with the sun so low in the sky and not yet heating the city to sweltering heights, so she laughed. “Yes, a sedate walk through an open plain was certainly what my ancestors meant when they said K’miri queens were born in the saddle.”

That K’miri queens were also said to be bred in the saddle was neatly skipped over. Kally was already blushing, she didn’t need to add matters of _breeding_ to her embarrassment.

“Not challenging enough for you, Majesty? Then what do you say to a race?”

The eager, competitive part of Kally’s soul raised its head, though she tried to quash it down. Kaddar might not have even twitched an eyebrow at her attire or the way she rode astride, but she doubted her ugly, merciless desire to win—there was not a single race she’d had with Roald before he began his page training that ended in anything other than the Crown Prince’s sound defeat—would do much to endear her to him.

“Surely we shouldn’t,” she said, though even to her ear, she sounded half-hearted. 

“And yet I am quite sure that we will.” Then, sly, like he knew that these were Words of Power that would get him just what he wanted: “Unless you’re worried you’ll lose.”

Any of Kally’s attempts to rein in her competitive instincts evaporated like so much morning mist. 

With a whoop that no one would call ladylike for all she’d first heard it from her lady mother’s mouth, Kally kicked her horse straight into a gallop. Wildfire, who hadn’t had much opportunity to truly stretch his legs as of late, leapt to obey. Kaddar’s shout of protest was lost in the wind rushing by her ears. 

She slowed just enough to let Kaddar draw even. Once he was, she flashed him a triumphant grin and urged Wildfire forward once again. 

Crouched low over Wildfire’s withers, her body in perfect harmony with the rhythm of his hooves on the ground, Kally reveled in all that speed and power. There was nowhere to go, they hadn’t even set a finish line, but it didn’t matter. With his hooves thundering away beneath them, she was sure that if the ground were to disappear, they would go right on running, taking off into the sky.

By the time Kaddar cantered up, having clearly given up on catching Kally, to the shallow spring where she finally reined in Wildfire, girl and horse were both finally beginning to breathe evenly again.

“I don’t lose,” she pronounced, still giddy from the thrill of the race.

“So I see,” he replied, looking at her as if he didn’t see the way her hair was tumbling loose from its braid or that her cheeks were red and flushed from far too much exertion. He looked at her as if—

Kally wasn’t sure what it was that he saw, but she did know she wouldn’t mind if he kept looking at her just like that.

* * *

**July 27, 461 HE  
Aquamarine Courtyard and His Majesty's Imperial Apartments, New Palace, Thak City**

Unfortunately, despite gradually growing into all her consequence as Empress of Carthak, Kally had not grown equally immune to the consequences of her own poor choices. 

Fortunately, as far as consequences went, this was about as un-catastrophic as could be. She hadn’t caused great offense to some dignitary and sent the empire hurtling towards war. She hadn’t mismanaged the palace’s budget, beggaring her husband’s estates in the process. She hadn’t even sparked the newest round of petty, courtly gossip. 

No, Kalasin had simply sprained her ankle. 

That she had done so during her first private training session with the Shang Porcupine was an absolute embarrassment. Particularly after she had campaigned so eagerly for the man's presence at court; convincing her husband and the Carthaki Training Master and no small number of nobles of the prudence in having a Shang master instruct the next generation of Carthaki warriors, was no small task. And while she certainly believed that the pages and squires still at court would benefit from learning new styles of combat, just as the knights-in-training did at home in Corus, her own, selfish, desires were kept carefully guarded.

She wanted to learn to fight.

Kalasin was a fair shot with a crossbow, even on horseback, but should she be thrust into any kind of close-range fight, she would have to rely on her Gift. far more suited to healing than harming, it wouldn't give her much of an advantage. 

Then again, it was unlikely she would ever be accosted without the bevy of guards that now shadowed her every step, but it never hurt to be prepared. 

Perhaps if she had prepared herself for the possibility that the few self-defense techniques she had learned as a girl would not stand her in good stead as a woman grown, she might not have so stubbornly insisted on continuing to train even as her entire body protested. Perhaps, in her desire to prove that she was not another soft, gentle lady, she would not have pushed herself so hard.

Shamed by the memory of the Porcupine sweeping her feet from beneath her and mildly observing that perhaps Her Majesty ought to begin with the strength exercises he had suggested, Kally resolved to stop dwelling and be better the next time. Really, though, that was difficult. How could she stop dwelling when every time her feet shifted on the sun-warm tile below her chair, a throb of pain lit up her left foot all the way up her shin? 

Hobbling back to her rooms last night, the discomfort in her ankle had hardly registered, simply one line in the symphony of aches she had already collected. Annoyed with her own deficiencies, Kally had assumed that simple rest would be enough to soothe the worst of it, and went to bed after a hot soak and cup of willowbark tea. When she awoke, she had no reason to think her assumption incorrect, muscles a bit sore, but largely rested.

It was not until she was half an hour into a tour of the damage taken by the riverside neighborhoods of Thak City in the latest flooding that she realized the tightness in her ankle, had yet to abate. Of course, she kept quiet, turning her attention to distributing supplies and applying her Gift to the citizens who had not yet seen a healer, too busy trying to salvage their homes and livelihoods to worry about scrapes and bruises. Compared to the losses experienced by those families, entire homes standing knee-deep in stagnant water, Kally’s discomfort seemed a small thing. 

Now, sitting in one of the courtyards of the palace, awaiting the arrival of her husband to take tea with her as they discussed imperial business, it seemed a bit bigger. 

Unthinking, Kally went to cross her ankles demurely as she had been taught and bit back a hiss.

Maybe it was much bigger.

Not for the first time, she eyed the crystal fall of water splashing over a mosaic wall and into a clear pool from a balcony overhead. Kally didn't particularly relish the thought of Kaddar finding her soaking her feet or trailing water throughout the palace from her damp skirts, but the prospect of the soothing, cool water might soon overpower her reservations.

“Have you been waiting long?”

Striding into the courtyard, likely straight out of a meeting with his military leaders if the sword at his side was any indicator—he’d thought, when he first took the throne, its presence would make the generals and career military men take him more seriously, though now Kally suspected it was just habit—Kaddar looked a bit harried. 

Harried enough that he pressed an unthinking kiss to Kally’s cheek. 

They both froze, neither quite sure what to do. Their bouts of affection were typically confined to either public displays for the benefit of the court or the privacy of their own suites. Moments of unplanned, unobserved intimacy, however, had begun to sprout up lately, always taking them by surprise.

Kaddar recovered first, giving himself a little shake and smiling ruefully as he took the chair opposite his wife. Unable to look him in the eye, she beckoned for the tea service she knew was waiting just out of sight and busied herself with pouring when it appeared.

“I’ve just been going over some of the early planting reports from Amar and Apal,” she replied when she was sure her voice would be even.

“And?”

“The harvest might not be as robust as we hope, but the new aqueducts the governors propose can only improve things.”

Like that, the memory of his lips on her cheek dropped away, the business of the empire taking precedence. They fell into an easy rhythm, filling one another in on news and developments they hadn’t yet been privy to and discussing and determining courses of action for their joint meetings. Ever since they’d nearly devolved into the—politest, it had to be said, neither willing to outright insult the other—shouting match during an assembly of the Imperial Councils, Kally and Kaddar had taken to meeting weekly to hammer out any disagreements in private. Better to get huffy with one another for an hour or two than present anything other than a united front to the various bureaucrats and statesmen of the empire, many of whom would happily pounce on any show of division to pursue their own interests.

Naturally, and more often as they grew more comfortable with one another, these discussions were sometimes less than civil. Kally may have learned to rein in her temper, but Kaddar seemed to know exactly how to make his wife forget all that control. She might know exactly why he advocated for more incremental policies, and could even see the wisdom of them, yet she almost always found herself pushing for more aggressive changes to old, outdated policies. Someone had to speak for progress, for no matter what the collective lordships of the empire might wish, no land could forever stay the same.

Irrationally, Kalasin found herself liking her husband far more when he needled, debating against her positions and even flatly informing her she was wrong, going on to lay out entirely too reasonable arguments as to why. Of course, that didn’t mean that she was just going to agree with him, not when she had her own, wholly reasonable arguments to support her side. But she still liked him better.

“You cannot tell me that an educated populace is anything but a boon!”

“I can when our empire is almost entirely supported by agricultural production. Do you suppose the fieldhands will plant and harvest more efficiently for studying Siraji poetry?”

“I suppose that those fieldhands will plant and harvest more efficiently with a firm understanding of crop yields and rotation,” Kalasin volleyed back. “Teaching farmers’ children their letters and figures will not suddenly strip the empire of the next generation of farmers.”

“No, but it will teach some of them that there is more to life beyond those farms. More that they likely cannot achieve without further schooling or opportunity.”

“So we should provide that opportunity!”

“For the whole of the empire?” he pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “Too many will be left behind, just educated enough to know that they could be something else. That kind of knowledge will breed discontent, and we have more than enough of that as it is.”

Kally hated that he had a point, though it was a small comfort that she was sure he hated it too. What kind of ruler wanted to limit the horizons of his people? Kaddar took no pleasure in pointing out the objective reality of his empire.

“We won’t always.”

Kaddar’s grin was slow to bloom, but it lit him up nonetheless. 

“No, we won’t.”

“Which is why we should have plans in place now to build free, imperial schools across the empire.”

His laugh, bright and loud, didn’t startle Kally the way it first had.

She glanced up at her husband from beneath her lashes. All deep, bronze skin and curling hair that never seemed to stay where it was combed, he really was striking. Especially when he laughed. If he wanted to kiss her again, this time she would not freeze.

“A point to you, my dear,” he said, the endearment rolling off his tongue as easily as the admission that she had taken this round. “Now, I believe I am due with a group of Zallaran lords, but may I escort you to your next destination?”

On cue, Kally’s ankle, forgotten as she got caught up in matters of imperial administration and Kaddar’s company, gave a sharp throb.

“No, I believe I’ll sit out here and enjoy the sunshine,” she said as blandly as possible. It wouldn’t do for Kaddar to decide to join her. He might be able to put off the Zallarans, mostly men he had grown up with, but she was not so lucky. No, she needed him to leave if she was going to hobble off to her next meeting with her dignity semi-intact. If she hurried, she might even have time to stop in at the healer’s ward for a salve or a spot of magical pain relief. Given all she had left to do today, Kally didn’t want to risk an actual healing—she always was horrifically tired afterward—but hopefully one or the other would tide her over until her schedule was clear.

His brow furrowed. “Don’t you have an appointment with the foreign trade minister soon?”

Kally smiled to hide her grimace. That was, in fact, her next appointment, but she hadn’t expected her husband to know. He was the emperor. Didn’t he have more pressing matters than her schedule to attend to?

“Ah, yes,” she said once it became clear Kaddar was not going to magically decide he needn’t wait for her. Though Carthak’s sense of chivalry was quite distinct from what she’d known in Tortall, apparently the squiring about of unattended women was one of the few commonalities.

Holding out his hand, he smiled warmly. “Come, I’ll walk with you.”

At any other time, Kalasin would find this wholly sweet; it wasn’t often that either of them had much unscheduled time to spare for the other. Now, her ankle throbbing, she found his attentiveness perversely inopportune.

Nonetheless, she gritted her teeth and forced herself to stand. How soft had she become that a rolled ankle was enough to lay her low? As soon as her ankle allowed, she was going straight back to the Shang Porcupine to demand he toughen her back up to fighting shape.

Concentrating on maintaining an even step and keeping her face clear, Kally walked with her arm looped through Kaddar’s. She couldn’t even lean on him properly, not unless she wanted him to start prodding and discover what she'd done to herself. Nor could she really attend to what he was saying. She simply hummed and nodded along, the rise and fall of his voice providing natural cues. 

“Kalasin?”

“Hm? Oh, yes, of course,” she said, beads of sweat pricking at her temples and down the back of her neck.

“All right, what is going on? You just agreed— Kally?”

Apparently, her nod-and-smile tack had failed her, though she never did discover what she’d agreed to that was so concerning because Kaddar pulled up short just as she gingerly put her weight on the bad ankle. Momentum wrenched her forward even as her grip on Kaddar’s arm kept her stationary, and it was all too much. She couldn’t contain a strangled whimper or hide the way she stumbled to relieve the pressure. 

Breathing a little shaky, it took Kalasin a moment to compose herself enough to reply, “I’m all right.”

“I’m fairly sure you are not.”

In other circumstances, Kally did not think she would so openly glare at her husband, not when anyone could come across them, but she felt quite justified at the moment. Particularly when he simply gazed blandly back at her, expecting an explanation and happy to wait until he got one.

Grudgingly, she admitted, “I am simply a bit sore today.”

Kaddar frowned, his gaze flicking down. No doubt, he saw the way she favored her left leg, even with her skirts in the way. In Tortall, with layers of petticoats and sturdy dresses of cotton and wool, she could have concealed her uneven stance; in Carthak, where she still wasn't used to the fine, gauzy layers of her dresses for all they almost made the summer heat bearable, there was no chance. His eyes slid back up to meet hers, skepticism clear.

Then, without any warning at all, he dropped down to one knee before her. Without his steadiness beside her, and with only one good leg, Kally wobbled. The helping hand he put on her waist did not exactly help matters, not when they so rarely touched like this and he was reaching to lift her hem. 

Wherever else Kally’s imagination might run—by the heat in her cheeks, it was clear it _ran_ —the emperor had only one thing on his mind. The hem of her skirts rose only high enough to reveal Kalasin’s sandaled feet and ankles. He went so still that Kally chanced a look down at what had no doubt caught his attention.

Swollen and red and, _oh_ — That did look much worse than it had this morning. 

Faintly, she said as much, and Kaddar’s head whipped up to pin her with a furious gaze. 

“Why have you been walking on this?” he demanded, rising to tower over his wife. 

Well, Kalasin knew plenty of tall men; she knew better than to let something so arbitrary as a height advantage intimidate her. She lifted her chin and glared straight back. 

“Because I had places to be, Your Majesty.”

His jaw and fists clenched, like he was fighting to hold back an angry rejoinder. 

Rather than let it fly, though, he surprised her.

All at once, she found herself swept into the air, strong arms braced against her shoulders and beneath her knees, and carried down the hall. Through the fine draping of her dress, it was impossible to ignore the heat of him. If a single touch to her waist and his grip on her skirts had been enough to throw her, then this felt like it turned her entire equilibrium to the wind. 

“Kaddar!” she exclaimed. “Put me down! I am entirely capable of walking.”

“Which is why your ankle looks as though someone has used it as an anvil.”

“It is not that bad.”

“Kalasin, you are _a healer_ ,” he said, sounding truly aggrieved.

She pursed her lips. “Yes, well, haven’t you ever heard that healers make the worst patients?”

He didn’t deign to reply.

Rather than bring her to her apartments, Kaddar carried her straight into his. Kally wasn’t ashamed to admit she was curious to see them in full daylight. Though it was traditional for emperor and empress to maintain separate suites, she suspected they were cleaving a bit too closely to convention for two young rulers who truly enjoyed one another's company. She still had not passed an entire night in Kaddar's bed, nor he hers. Some days, they felt more like colleagues than husband and wife. From her spot on a settee, a cushion eased under her foot before Kaddar went off to summon a servant, there was much to take in. 

Somehow even more lavishly decorated than her own apartments, the emperor’s quarters still bore the stamp of the man himself. Yes, all the wall hangings and rugs were luxurious in the extreme, but the colors pointed to a preference for greens and browns over the gold that dominated in so much of the palace. Plants, in individual pots and holders and anywhere there was space, made the rooms less a showpiece of imperial architecture and design than an extension of a botanist's greenhouse. Through the open door to a study, Kally spied a big, wooden desk which could have been a mere prop—finely worked and constructed to exude authority—if it weren’t for the stacks of reports and loose pens sprawled across its surface.

“Send for Lord Hetnim at the Imperial University,” Kaddar commanded an attendant who'd just arrived at the door. “Then inform Minister Subala that his meeting with the empress has been postponed.”

Kally stirred at that. “Surely, that’s not—”

The servant, however, was already gone. 

With no one else to appeal to, she leveled a sour look on her husband. Which he blithely ignored as he came back to perch beside her ankle. He frowned as he looked at it. In one hand, he held a small pot which he opened to reveal a thick, creamy balm that smelled strongly of mint. Without asking, he freed her left foot from its sandal and began to smear it over her tender flesh.

"What is this?" she asked, cool relief already seeping into her ankle.

"Just a balm I learned to make in university," Kaddar replied, not sounding particularly proud of the accomplishment. The only numbing cream Kalasin had ever felt work faster had been made by the Lioness. Before she could tell him so, he pinned her with another frown. "Now, will you tell me how this happened?"

"It's nothing."

"It is not nothing when someone harms the empress."

Impatiently, she snapped, "Oh, no one has harmed the empress. The empress simply made a fool of herself." At his raised brow—though it was nice to see some of the tension that had kept him so rigid fade away—she pursed her lips. Eventually, Kally admitted, "I may have been too eager to begin training with the Shang Porcupine."

"Kalasin—"

"It's just a twisted ankle," she said, unwilling to hear him suggest she confine herself to less strenuous activity. "I will be fine in no time at all."

To his credit, Kaddar didn't put up any further argument. "Then I suppose you should keep this," he said, pressing the jar into her hands.

"You say that as though you expect me to go on injuring myself."

His responding smile was just enigmatic enough to neither confirm nor deny her suspicions. Kally couldn't say how much he approved of her latest undertaking, but that he would not keep her from it was enough.

Although he had finished applying the balm, he did not remove his palm from her swollen ankle. Intellectually, Kalasin knew the heat of his skin wouldn’t help with the swelling, but she didn’t plan to remind him. It felt too nice.

His thumb brushed over sensitive skin, and Kally suppressed a shiver. She didn’t when Kaddar looked her in the eyes, his anger and even worry fading into something heated, more intimate. He leaned forward, and unthinkingly, she mirrored him.

The charged moment drew to an abrupt end courtesy of a sharp knock on the door. 

Kaddar was all smiles as he welcomed Zaimid Hetnim, who must have been on the palace grounds to have arrived so quickly. There was no sign of annoyance when he showed the healer to Kalasin, though he did start to frown when his old friend and his wife took to each other immediately, trading thoughts on the newest advancements in healing and largely ignoring the emperor. 

Kalasin, in fact, didn’t notice the growing thundercloud on the horizon, too delighted to discuss the intricacies of healing with someone even better trained than she was. She had just begun to offer her services to the palace’s healers, but there was little they allowed the empress to do and fewer courtiers wholly comfortable taking real health concerns to their monarch. Mostly, she cleared ladies’ headaches and cured cases of sniffles before they could sweep through the court. It was nice to talk about ailments more complex than hay fever and heat exhaustion. 

It wasn’t until Kaddar practically lifted Lord Hetnim by the arm, cheerfully herding out the youngest Chief Healer in the history of the Imperial University as if he were no more than a nuisance, that Kally realized how thoroughly he had been excluded from the conversation. 

Bemused, she watched the door swing shut and leave her and her husband alone once more. 

“We were having a fascinating discussion on new techniques in kidney repair, you know,” she informed him as he returned to her side. 

“And you can continue,” he said, lifting her foot, still tender but feeling much better, so he could sit as well. Her ankle he propped on his lap, rearranging the cloth full of ice an enterprising servant had delivered and not seeming to mind as it dripped onto the silk of his trousers. “Explain it to me. Why does a healthy heart make such a difference in the treatment of renal disease?”

“Well,” she said, fighting back a yawn, largely unsuccessfully, “it comes down to the supply of blood…”

Kaddar continued to ask acute, sharp questions, and Kalasin enjoyed putting her education to the test, but the longer she spoke, the more yawns broke into her answers. Soon, her eyes drifted shut as well. She fought to keep them open, knowing she couldn’t trap Kaddar here as she succumbed to post-healing exhaustion. 

Her husband had no such reservations, the rhythmic sweep of his thumb against the knob of her ankle steadily sending her off to sleep.

When she finally gave in, the last thing she saw was a gentle, fond smile on his face. Though she didn't realize, it was mirrored beautifully on hers.

* * *

**November 8, 461 HE  
Imperial Throne Room and New Palace Gardens, Thak City**

Like as not, it was beneath the dignity of the throne to be discussing this, but if Kally were constrained to topics of conversation that befit the thrones of Carthak, she would pass the majority of court functions bored to tears.

Besides, judging by the way Kaddar leaned against the arm of his throne, cocking his head to better pick up her murmurs, it didn’t seem as though the emperor minded. 

And if the emperor didn’t mind her flippancy, then there were few who would dare object.  
“What do you think, Your Majesty?” she asked, putting on a haughty tone. “This is a matter of grave importance. My ladies are quite prepared to wage war if I do not take their part, so I turn to you: which side shall get a nose button?” 

Corner of his mouth twitching in spite of years perfecting an expression of stern coolness, Kaddar gave her query all due consideration.

More accurately, he gave her face, and the nose in question, all due consideration. 

Kally felt her cheeks begin to warm as he studied her face closely, dark eyes sweeping over her as intently as any report or study that crossed his desk.

Pretending it was just the heat of the crowded room—a dizzying collection of courtiers gathered to celebrate the birth of their empress twenty years ago, though the majority milled and danced well away from the raised dais holding their thrones—she lifted her chin, tilting her face to better aid his contemplation. When she looked at him once more, arching an imperious brow, it was impossible not to see the laughter he was suppressing shining through his eyes. 

Only a few short months ago, however, she might not have known that scrupulously flat line of his mouth was a signal of his mounting amusement. 

“For an issue of such gravity,” he finally pronounced, “by necessity, we must solicit the opinions of our great councils.”

Surprised and delighted, Kalasin let out a bright burst of laughter, her head tipping back to better loose her amusement. When she straightened, she pinned Kaddar with a look of friendly suspicion. 

“You only appeal to the councils when you hope they unearth some reason not to move forward with a proposal.”

“That is not the only reason to seek the councils’ advice. Some of the empire’s finest minds hold seats on any number of committees,” he replied steadily. “If they also can be relied upon to raise a host of concerns…”

He was rewarded with another burst of laughter, bright enough to crack his own facade. Chuckling lightly himself, his smile only subdued for the sake of the crowd enjoying themselves, Kaddar said, “If you truly wish to wear a nose button, you would look charming no matter which side you chose.”

“Naturally.”

His smile brightened a notch, and Kally couldn’t help the heady glow of pride. It was not such a difficult thing to make her husband smile—as serious and commanding as he was, Kaddar had a finely honed sense of humor—but every time she managed it, it felt like a new achievement.

Rather than let him see how easy it was to delight her, Kalasin turned forward once more.

Her shoulders rolled back, drawing her spine straight and tall to ease some of the discomfort in her back. Even if she could seat herself to make use of the carved back of the enormous throne without her feet dangling inches from the ground like a child’s, she would not dare tonight. Tinkling strands of beadwork swept from one gold-capped shoulder to the other in progressively deeper arcs, concealing and revealing her smooth, bare back in equal measure. One wrong move and a string would catch, sending cascades of tiny, sparkling beads scattering. Considering all the hours that went into stringing the quartz beads—ranging from the milky shades of moonlight to deepest rose—and pressing fine accordion pleats into the skirts, it would be a shame to ruin the gown so carelessly.

“I might be a step behind here, but I can only imagine the trend a nose button would spark in Corus,” Kally said, more to fill the quiet than anything. Nonetheless, now that she thought about it, the truth of it settled in. The number of snide remarks Mama would hear from mothers of young ladies clamoring to follow the princess’s lead could very likely annoy Queen Thayet into taking her ladies on a long, impromptu goodwill mission to some outlying fief. Conveniently leaving her daughter to fend off her father’s quiet exasperation all on her own.

“You miss it.”

His observation, astute and proof positive that she was not the only one making a study of her spouse’s expression, was a surprise. More surprising was that he was right. It had been some time since she had felt this insistent ache of nostalgia. Mostly, she was too busy to spare more than a passing, wistful thought for Tortall and all the things she’d left behind.

Kally sighed but didn’t bother to deny it; there was nothing to gain by lying to Kaddar. “I miss my family,” she confessed, resting her chin on a palm as she gazed out at her milling guests. “My parents and siblings, of course, but everyone else, too. I hadn’t seen my Aunt Alanna in months before I set sail, and as Champion, she stayed behind with Roald and Shinko for the wedding. From what she’s written, Daine’s been up north ever since the Scanran border began heating up.”

Kaddar shook his head, a rueful, wondering look in his eye. At her inquisitive expression, he smiled. “It defies reason that you speak so casually of people like the Lioness and the Wildmage. As if they are only beloved family members and not legends in their own rights.”

Kally had long ago come to terms with the fact that her family was fantastical even for a royal house. She shrugged, the motion of her shoulders setting off a wave of delicate clinking.

“I suppose. But reason would also have qualms with your ascension to the throne. Surely most emperors do not succeed a man who has turned himself into a monster from the storybooks.”

“We can only hope,” he replied dryly.

They were interrupted as the Gallan Ambassador approached to present Kalasin with a token from his king. This brought on a wave of more well-wishers and an application for her hand in a dance. One dance became several, and though Kally found herself in Kaddar’s arms at one point, the whirling steps and turns still took too much of her attention to allow for much conversation. It wasn’t much of a loss to her mind, not with his strong hand on the dip of her waist, fingers warm on the skin of her back, and his dark eyes staring so deeply into hers.

Much as she might like to, she could not spend the entire evening dancing with her husband, but it seemed as though every time she glimpsed him across the hall, Kaddar was already looking back. 

Much, much later, when her hair was finally beginning to win the war it waged against the ruby-topped pins constraining it, Kaddar appeared at her side. Guiding her up to the dais, he leaned in to murmur, “I believe it is time to bid our guests goodnight.”

Kally was in complete agreement. 

Aware of the striking image they presented standing side by side, young and vibrant and self-assured, she addressed the remaining guests to graciously thank them for celebrating her birthday so thoroughly. Kaddar echoed her sentiments, and they swept out of the hall, leaving their guests to find their beds or more reveling as the mood took them.

“Are you tired, or would you like to walk with me?”

The fresh breeze against her face had revived Kally enough that despite her aching feet, she allowed Kaddar to lead her out onto the moonlit paths of the palace’s gardens.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Of course,” she replied, automatic but no less truthful for it. “The feast and the ball were wonderful.”

“All the more because you didn’t have to plan any of it?” 

Kally laughed, nodding to acknowledge the hit. “I am more than happy to attend all sorts of parties and state functions, but their organization and execution has never been of much interest.”

“Whatever shall I tell the imperial festival coordinators? I understand they have been quite enamored of your talents since implementing your suggestions for this year’s Governor’s Ball to great success.”

“I may not be interested, but that’s no reason to do a thing poorly,” she sniffed, lifting her chin. 

Kaddar laughed, the rumble shaking through the arm Kally had looped through his and straight into her chest. Her fingers tightened on the heavily embroidered sleeve of his long tunic

Kally wasn’t sure if that was a true chill in the air, or if she had just become too accustomed to Carthaki heat. Either way, she shivered. 

“Should we return inside?” Kaddar asked, sounding worried. He gave up the formal hold on her hand to draw her in, arm slipping around her back and pressing cool beads to her bare skin. Kally shivered again. With all his heat pressed to her side, she was sure that this was not from the cold. 

“No,” she said, entirely too proud that her voice remained steady. “It is too beautiful a night not to enjoy it. Perhaps we should have had the dancing outdoors.”

True to her word, the night sky above them was glorious. The moon, full and luminous as a pearl, swam in a sea of stars, not a cloud in sight to shroud their light. The cool breeze that had made her shiver carried the scent of the gardens, fewer blooms now that the year turned to winter, but still undeniably green and alive. 

“As you wish. There is actually something I’d like to show you.”

Belying the casual tone, as if he had just remembered there was a report she’d find interesting, Kaddar’s step quickened. 

Intrigued and bemused all at once, Kally silently urged her own feet to match his pace. 

It wasn’t until they reached one of the small gardens, tucked into the lee between the jut of a lesser library and the palace proper and largely abandoned until Kally had come upon it and taken to reviewing correspondence there, near her apartments that her own curiosity was piqued. 

She had already been presented with Wildfire, groomed to a shine and fitted with an astoundingly bejeweled set of parade tack. As he’d handed her up onto his back, Kaddar had assured her that her regular saddle still awaited her morning rides. 

Had he prepared something else?

Peering into the shadowed garden, Kalasin took stock. There was the bench that she’d had moved to catch the afternoon sun, and there the tiled birdbath where the grounds’ colorful songbirds took shelter from the heat. Ah, and there was the history of the western tribes of Carthak she had mislaid.

Rather than bring her to the book, however, Kaddar tugged her over to the wall opposite her bench. A wall that a few days ago, held an arched niche containing a statue of the goddess Hekaja, but nothing else. 

Now, dainty trellises had been affixed to either side of the niche to support climbing vines bearing soft, fronded leaves and the bobbing heads of new blooms. 

For a long moment, all she could do was stare in puzzled fascination because there was no chance she saw what she thought she did. Judging by Kaddar’s, bright, expectant expression, however…

Was it possible?  
Kally drifted closer. Gingerly, she lifted a single flower for closer inspection. The fragile, papery creases of the petals were undeniably familiar against her fingertips, and the size, the shape, was just right. It was hard to tell in the silvery moonlight, but Kally suspected these were darker than the blooms she was used to. They smelled just the same. 

Twilight poppies. Growing right here in the garden she’d come to think of as hers.

In truth, it was no stranger for them to grow out of leafy vines here in the heart of Carthak’s imperial gardens than it was for them to take root in the soil of Tortall’s palace grounds. For something that sprouted all through the rocky highlands of Sarain, the plant was notoriously difficult to cultivate elsewhere. Buri liked to say a land required longstanding devotion to Grandmother Stone to enjoy the beauty of the twilight poppy, and maybe that was true.

Kalasin had resigned herself to never seeing them grow wild in their native mountain ranges; it would take decades for any descendant of Thayet _jian_ Wilima to be seen as anything other than a threat to the fragile peace that country was building. She had even thought she’d accepted that she’d likely never see them cycle all the way from tender shoots to new buds to full blossoms to seeds returning to the earth to prepare the way for the next year’s growth. 

Seeing these flowers now, Kally found that wasn’t the case.

“How did you manage this?” She still remembered the summer swift rains and a long heatwave nearly decimated the lone bed of twilight poppies growing on the castle grounds. Her mother had spent lavishly hiring a garden mage to coax the delicate, blue blooms back to life. She’d worn new frown lines after that ordeal. 

Eagerly, Kaddar launched into an explanation that she could mostly follow, having listened to similar tangents on his latest botanical experiments over the months. “I know they’re meant to grow on stems, closer to the ground,” he said, sounding far too apologetic, “and this might take some getting used to. But I wanted to grow your favorite flower in time for your birthday. Perhaps by next year, I’ll have them right.”

“How did you know these are my favorite?” she asked, still too stunned to fully process the enormity of what he’d done.

His brow furrowed. “It was in one of your letters, of course. You were telling me that Jasson and Liam had staged an impromptu reenactment of one of the Lioness’s duels and managed to trample half the flowerbed where the poppies grew in the process.”

Dimly, the memory surfaced. “Yes. I sent a pressed victim of their rampage with that letter.”

“You did. It took quite some time to collect enough samples to begin working towards a hybrid that would grow here.”

“But you did it.”

“Yes.” Then, after a beat. “What do you think?”

“They’re lovely,” she eventually said, managing to keep most of the thick press of emotion from her voice for all it crowded her throat and wanted to be let loose into the night air. “Perfect.”

“Then they are a fitting gift,” he said, none of the gallant pride she’d come to expect when he flirted so outrageously with her.

When Kally looked, Kaddar was smiling down at her, closer than she’d swear he’d been just a moment ago. As soon as he caught her looking back, he reached for her chin, turning her and tipping it up all in one motion until all he had to do was lean in to lay a kiss on her upturned mouth. For a moment, though, he hovered just out of reach, drinking her in. 

It wasn’t until Kally took hold of his wrist and rose on the balls of her feet to inch closer, that he finally closed the distance. 

His kiss, gentle but not at all tentative, made her want to sigh and lean her weight against his chest. So she did, delighting in the way his hand slid beneath the curtain of beads to trace up the column of her spine. 

She shivered, and now, both of them knew it had nothing to do with a chill.

Still, this time, when Kaddar offered to bring her inside, Kally was more than happy to accept.

* * *

**December 18, 461 HE  
** **Great Mother's Healing Ward and Yusenga Plaza, Sweetspring, Thak City**

“Here, let me show you,” Kally said to her knot of attentive onlookers. Deftly, she knotted a length of thread, tying the action to her Gift and the cut she was healing on a patient’s brow. Magically, the blood flow halted. With just a bit more of her power as she secured the ends of the thread together, the skin smoothed over until no sign of the injury was left. Once the woman was gone and thanked for her patience, she turned back to her audience. “Do you see how the thread helped guide the healing?”

Wide-eyed, the youngest students of the Great Mother’s clinic—most of them between seven and ten, only just beginning to come into their Gifts—stared back at her. When this class had been given over to her, Kally hadn’t found herself to be a natural teacher, though she certainly did her best. In the intervening months, she’d begun to find her footing, growing more comfortable with each passing week. (If she channeled more of Duke Baird than Aunt Alanna in her teaching style, it was certainly a coincidence. And one she would never own.)

Even if she hadn’t, Kalasin wasn’t sure she would give it up. It was altogether refreshing to regularly find herself with an audience awed not by her crown—though surely each healer-in-training knew their instructor with her funny accent and fair skin was, in fact, Empress Kalasin, imperial consequence didn’t seem to impress them much—but by her talent with her Gift.

One such awed student frowned at her teacher, a deep furrow working its way between her eyebrows. 

“Lady, didn’t you say last week we _shouldn’t_ tie knots in the blood vessels?” Istheni, eight and as sharp as anything, demanded. “You said that was a good way to kill the flesh those vessels feed.”

“Yes, I did. Which is why I tie knots only in the thread. A knot is just a symbol, a way to focus our Gifts with an action. Just like other mages may use symbols or words of power for their spells, healers can do similar things, and not just with thread.”

Kally went on to demonstrate all manner of shortcuts she’d learned over the years, most of them good for helping young minds learn to shape and control their Gifts.

“Your Majesty,” one of the temple’s novitiates said, breaking into the quiet chatter. “Your escort has arrived.”

Kally didn’t quite frown; her escort was a squadron of armed guards, and they waited in the small, shaded square that housed the clinic while she went about her work. Perhaps they had received word from the palace that she needed to return right away? If that were the case, the captain would have come to inform her himself.

“Tell them I’ll be out when the lesson is done.”

The novitiate’s eyes went wide, her ordinarily rich, dark skin paling by a few degrees. “Your Majesty misunderstands. Your other escort.” Then, when it was clear Kally did not follow, the poor girl swallowed nervously. “Your husband.”

“My husband.” Kally was too busy trying to string together what sequence of events could have brought Kaddar into the heart of the capital to notice the hushed quiet that descended among her students. She smiled, now understanding the messenger’s nerves. “I see. I will be right out.”

As the daughter scurried away, relief flooding her body language, Kally turned to the children. 

She was not prepared for what she found. 

To a one, they all gazed up at her, gleeful gleams in each eye. 

Kally rocked back in surprise. None of her lessons had ever captured their interest so thoroughly.

“I’m sure you are all quite devastated to hear I must leave you early this week,” she said, hoping that if she ignored the strange fervor that had swept through them, none of them would give it voice. “I’d like you to keep practicing those shorthands; while your Gift is still developing, they’re a good way to keep from draining it too quickly. All right, off you go!”

It became abundantly clear, however, that they were not going anywhere. Not until Kally herself had gathered her healer’s kit and left the teaching examination room. As she headed for the entrance, she found herself trailing little girls.

After a hushed, furious flurry of argument: “We didn’t know you had a husband.”

“What? Of course you did.” As unimpressed as they were with imperial glory, it could not have escaped their notice that in Carthak, an empress required an emperor.

“But you don’t talk about him.”

“Because I’m too busy talking about healing.”

“Healer Leinah always talks about her husband.”

“During our lessons, too,” Istheni added helpfully. 

“How come your husband doesn’t always escort you around?” one brave little soul asked.

“Well, he is quite busy.”

Sounds of collective doubt echoed behind her.

“Healer Leinah’s husband always walks with her,” Vanda pointed out.

Refraining from pointing out that Healer Leinah’s husband worked only two streets away in his bookshop while her own was usually entrenched in meetings miles away from sunup until well after it had set, Kally smiled. 

“Shall I tell him that you’re all disappointed he neglects this husbandly duty?”

Before any of them could reply, they arrived at the front doors of the clinic, propped open to welcome all who sought care. Today, this also meant that they were all treated to the sight of Emperor Kaddar, in, if not all his imperial glory, then certainly enough of it to make an impression. 

As one, the patter of small feet stopped as they took in the emperor for likely the first time in their lives. A hushed moment of quiet descended. 

Until—

“Lady, you didn’t say he was _handsome_ ,” Istheni complained.

“Is he?” Kally teased. 

Istheni gave her a look that needed no explanation.

Tweaking her nose, Kally left her students with one last reminder to practice before their next lesson and crossed to the small but immaculately clean fountain where her escort waited.

“To what do I owe this honor?” she asked, teasing but meaning it all the same. Kally had never before left her rounds at the clinic to find anyone other than a squad of Imperial Guardsmen waiting to convey her back to the palace.

Kaddar clearly suppressed the urge to snort. “Is it any honor for a man to escort his wife home?”

“When that man is neglecting his High Council to do so, I would say yes.”

“They could do with some neglect. It is past time for them to learn I am not just the mediator for their petty squabbles.”

“Of course. After all, you are often the reason for their petty squabbles as well.”

Shaking his head, he leaned in to brush a kiss of greeting against her mouth. 

Kally didn’t have time to enjoy this new form of affection they were still settling into for the flurry of high, scandalized giggles at her back. Looking over her shoulder, she leveled an exasperated look at her students that didn’t seem to dent their high spirits at all. And no wonder, for when she turned back to him, she found Kaddar cheerfully waving to their spectators. 

“Don’t encourage them,” she complained, settling her hand in the crook of his elbow and turning for the palace. 

Kaddar, however, did not follow. 

“What do you say to a longer path back to the palace?” he said in reply to her raised eyebrow.

Since he must have some greater reason for arranging his schedule to allow this detour, Kally acquiesced. Curiosity reared its head, but she was certain it would be satisfied soon. 

Nonetheless: “Are you sure we have time for this?”

In truth, a million things occupied Kally’s thoughts. This was her first Midwinter as Empress. Though she might have little passion for party-planning, any shortcoming to the palace’s festivities would reflect poorly on her nonetheless. If anyone was going to take exception to her, she preferred it be over something more consequential than a feast’s seating plan.

“Very sure,” he replied. “Your secretary assured me that your ladies are more than capable of arranging accommodations for the guests who will arrive this evening, and I will have you back well before you are due to observe the pages’ equestrian demonstration.”

Kalasin smiled, remembering the painstakingly lettered invitation that had arrived on her desk last week, requesting her presence at the annual Midwinter demonstration of the palace pages’ riding abilities. When she had asked the training master, a man with a better developed sense of humor than Wyldon of Cavall ever possessed, he had said that while he welcomed her presence, he was not responsible for the missive. Apparently, his charges had taken the initiative themselves.

“I hope you leave me enough time to change,” she said, contemplating the plain, linen dress she always wore for her work in the Mother’s clinic. “I would hate to disappoint them by neglecting to appear suitably awe-worthy.”

“You could awe them in a borrowed stableboy’s uniform, Kalasin. They are very taken with their dashing empress and her giant of a horse,” Kaddar informed her. He waited just a moment before ducking down to murmur in her ear, “They are not the only ones.”

With the first day of Midwinter already upon them, there was no blazing sun to blame for the heat flooding her face and chest. Still, that did not mean Kally had to acknowledge the hit.

Like he knew anyway, and took great pride in making his empress blush, Kaddar straightened and smiled. Hints of that smug expression remained even as Kally turned to other topics, grilling him on the latest demands of the malcontents among the western lords and a new intelligence report out of the Gray Palace in the Copper Isles. They traded speculation on what the next report would bring before agreeing it was impossible to say what turn of mind a Rittevon king would next take. 

“If we want to expand our trading lines east, then we should look past Port Udayapur. Too many merchants have exclusive contracts with shipping companies in the Eastern Lands. Or, there are always the Sunset Lands beyond the Emerald Ocean. To open regular trade— Kaddar?”

So engrossed in her vision of expanding Carthak’s shipping lines, putting the western lords’ private fleets to better use than posturing and harassing the coasts of peaceful neighbors, it took Kalasin a moment to realize Kaddar had slowed and brought them to a halt. She looked around, unsure of what had caught his attention. 

The square where they now stood was much like any other in the neighborhood; a central fountain splashed over worn, but neatly laid tile. Around three sides of the plaza, signs for various shops and company offices hung over doors and open windows, shutters thrown open to display their wares. In upper stories, Kally imagined there were workrooms and lodging houses; though they were still in the heart of one of the oldest districts of the city, the main thoroughfare to the University was just a short walk away. 

While Kaddar made a point of making himself known in the capital, arranging visits to the markets and businesses when he had a rare free afternoon, she could not imagine that any of the ordinary apothecaries or ceramics studios would have sparked his interest. Not when the last place he had insisted she see had housed entire walls of glass enclosures, each filled to the brim with water and darting schools of astoundingly bright fish. 

So, Kally turned to the last edge of the square and the single building that took up its entire length. 

Once, it must have been grand. With a tall, arching entrance closed in by gates beginning to sag on their hinges and wide, evenly spaced windows that had lost more than a few tiles from their sills, the bones of its former glory were nonetheless evident. Likely, it had been a minor noble or wealthy merchant’s city house, but those days were clearly long past.

Giving up on sussing out her husband’s reasons for stopping here, Kally looked up at him to find him already looking back, nervous expectation wearing lines into his brow. 

Smiling ruefully, she smoothed the wrinkle from his forehead and informed him, “You had better explain yourself, Kaddar, because I have no idea what we are doing here.”

He shook his head, but his expression had gone fond and unbearably tender. Rather than let her remove her hand, he took hold of it and pressed a kiss to the middle of her palm. Then, twining their fingers together, he turned them to look at the house. 

“What would you say,” he led, all attempts at portraying steady authority undermined by the way his eyes kept darting toward her, “if I told you this was to be the first Imperial Academy, open to all children of Carthak?”

There were a great many things she could say to that, but not a single one coalesced into a coherent thought. Should one take shape, it would remain caught on her tongue, for Kally was truly and utterly speechless. 

Even as Kaddar gave up on subtlety and turned to peer at her, that anxious furrow reappearing between his straight, black brows, she could not find words.

“Do you not like it?” he asked. “Is it the building? Was there one elsewhere you were hoping for? The imperial engineers assure me they are quite capable of making any improvements. Some of them have been requesting new construction projects ever since the palace was finished. I think they—”

“It’s wonderful,” Kally finally assured him, charmed in spite of herself. She had never heard Kaddar come so close to babbling. “But I thought that I—we—couldn’t begin opening schools for commoners.”

This had been their most common source of disagreement. While they often approached issues from different angles, their experiences and dispositions too different to do otherwise, it was rare that emperor and empress found themselves at complete odds. Except for Kalasin’s proposed schools, so like the system her parents had instituted across Tortall. Kaddar had never argued against the purpose of the venture, but he’d always insisted that such a sweeping reform would take time and finesse, cajoling Carthak’s sprawling and contrary class of nobility into line. While she thought she’d been making headway, getting Kaddar to see the need for this change sooner than later, she had never expected this.

Now Kaddar’s frown was puzzled more than worried. “Why couldn’t you open as many schools as you desire? Kally, you are the _empress_. You may do anything you like.”

“Anything?” she asked, arching a skeptical brow.

Immediately backtracking, though if Kalasin truly wished to do something, it would be done, with or without Kaddar’s approval, he clarified, “I must draw the line somewhere, at least officially.”

“You mean you would not publicly condone it if, one day, I lost my temper and threw my fan at Governor Piresai?”

Considering her fan was not one of the delicate things that graced the hands of so many Carthaki ladies but a deadly _shukusen_ , sharpened steel ribs hidden in painted silk, the possibility carried more threat than was seemly.

Kaddar only smiled. “It would depend on how much blood you drew.” 

Tucking that promise away to bring up at a later date, Kally turned back to the building. She could see it all: a front courtyard where the children could gather to eat lunch and play before lessons, rooms filled with tidy desks and new slates and books, students learning history and figures and their letters and hopefully going on to lay the groundwork for generations to come. 

There was a knot in her throat that Kalasin could not swallow down, nor did she want to. Gratitude and humility and passion crowded in together, and she hoped she would always remember that heady mix.

Eyes beginning to burn with the intensity of her emotion, she looked up at Kaddar, wanting him to see all that he had made her feel. Gently, he cupped her cheek, thumb sweeping against her lashes to wipe away radiant, sparkling tears. It was her turn, now, to press a kiss to his palm. With a happy sigh, she leaned her temple against Kaddar’s shoulder and surveyed the proof of her persuasive power. Dozens of ideas were already collecting in her head, and surely dozens more would join them by the time they reached the palace. Still, one burned brighter than the rest.

“I convinced you, then.” Victory was sweet, and even she was not immune to the call of smug self-satisfaction. 

“You convinced me months ago, Kally.”

“And you never said!”

“Would you believe that I quite enjoy it when you argue with me?” he asked, not sounding sheepish or ashamed in the least. 

If that was the case, Kally was prepared to give him quite the enjoyable time, but her annoyance guttered and went out, a flame that barely had the chance to catch, when Kaddar’s hands settled on her waist. He looked down at her, smiling far too charmingly, and pulled her close. 

Staring up into his brown eyes, dark but impossibly warm, she had to make sure: “We can really do this?”

With all the gravity of the vows he’d made both for his crown and her hand, Kaddar promised, “We will do this. Together.” 

With no gods as witnesses or ancient lines to recite, there was little more than Kally’s own expectations that would hold him to his word, and yet she had no trouble believing him. Not once in their near year of marriage had Kaddar given her reason to doubt his honesty. With this vision of the future laid before her, she would not start now.

* * *

**January 2, 462 HE  
Her Majesty’s Imperial Apartments, New Palace, Thak City**

Stretching languidly, her heart finally beginning to settle back into its usual rhythm, Kalasin luxuriated in the brush of silk sheets against her bare skin. Sweat pooled in the small of her back, her hair was likely a wild nest, and she would need to find more bruise balm for the blooming welts beneath her collarbone, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. 

Not when she was still dizzily gliding along, enjoying a slow, gradual descent from the greatest heights of pleasure. 

Whatever other issues they’d encountered, none had ever manifested in their marriage bed. Early on, there had always been an awareness that it should be strange and even awkward to perform these duties, but so much about the arrangement was strange and awkward. It was far easier to overcome in the dark privacy of their chambers, learning the physical, than it was in the bright light of day, painstakingly building a foundation for the partnership that would see Carthak through the next decades. The progress was admittedly uneven, but the closer they grew outside of the bedroom, learning each other’s quirks and habits and thoughts, the more satisfying their exploits within.

It certainly didn't hurt that both Kalasin and Kaddar were young and beautiful, all too willing to give in to the urges and curiosity that came so naturally. Kaddar had always been an attentive lover and Kally an eager partner.

Tonight, however, they had surely surpassed themselves. Following a whole day of New Year's festivities and feasts, no small part of which were also dedicated to celebrating the first year of their marriage, they had returned to her rooms to share a decanter of wine. They hadn't even bothered to finish their first glasses before Kally, overcome by the sight of him, lounging and comfortable with his long tunic upon to bare his strong chest, had leaned in and kissed him. It wasn't long before he had borne her off to her bedroom, trailing jewels and clothing as they went.

Now, nerves slowly calming from the bright hum of pleasure to something closer to warm, lulling content, Kalasin was fairly certain she had never been this satisfied. 

At her side, the mattress shifted. Out of the dark, Kaddar’s hand slid across her back, drawing her close. His lips pressed to her bare shoulder, and as they swept up to her neck, gooseflesh broke out in their wake. 

“You are magnificent, Empress,” he murmured against her throat. 

Kally turned onto her side and sleepily wrapped her arms around him. Fingers carding into his thick, dark hair, she hummed appreciatively. “Only as magnificent as the emperor.”

He laughed, low and clear and rousing her right back to wakeful anticipation. Heat curled low in her belly, an ember that glowed bright enough to fill her whole being.

Intent, Kally gave his hair a tug, guiding his face up from her neck until he could look her in the eyes, or close enough. With all but one mage-light doused for the evening, there wasn’t much she could make out of his face, though his warm breath gusted against her cheeks.

“No,” he said, reaching up to cradle her cheek, tender and reverent. Kalasin’s breath tangled up in her lungs as it had taken to lately. Any time Kaddar shot her an approving glance during a meeting with a troublesome lord or arrived to join her morning ride or pulled a pin from her hair to watch it tumble to her shoulders, it felt as though she'd forgotten how to breathe. “You are a wonder all your own.”

His lips brushed, impossibly sweet, against hers. Kally arched into him, ready to turn that sweetness into something more substantial. She was no longer shocked by her body’s ever-ready hunger for her husband. The desperate need to touch him, give back as much affection—fondness, but running deep and swift and true straight through the core of her, it had to go by some other name—as he gifted her so freely, had yet to grow old.

Pressing closer, Kally kissed him more ardently than she ever had before. She wanted him more than she ever had before. Intent on showing Kaddar exactly how much, she pushed at his shoulder, wanting the emperor flat on his back. While she had found plenty of things to do with her husband to make her breathless and giddy and, few measured up to getting to look down at his stunned expression as she put her years on horseback to new, and even more thrilling, use.

Unfortunately, though they were far better at reading one another across crowded banquet halls and tense meeting rooms, their silent communication was not without its faults. Taking her push not as the invitation it was, but a command to stop, Kaddar smiled easily into her mouth and drew back, leaving one last peck against her parted lips.

If she couldn't feel how insistently he wanted her, wasn't paying strict attention to the way he so reluctantly gave up his grip on her, Kally would think he didn't mind being sent away. In the ways that mattered, she suspected he didn't; Kaddar had always been scrupulous in following where she led. Now, she was quite ready to forge a new path. 

Before Kalasin could correct him, he murmured, “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon at the governors’ council, yes?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, rough and ragged, the honey drip of desire coursing through her veins given voice. Even as she reached for him again, Kaddar cleared his throat, edging away in a rustle of bedsheets and Kalasin’s confusion.

“Then I will leave you here,” he said, as he always did on these nights. How they had decided, without ever really discussing the matter, to always retire to their own chambers after these interludes, Kalasin didn’t know. She did know, however, that the arrangement was beginning to grate. “Sleep well, Kally.”

Just another moment, and he would be gone. In the morning, or the next time they came together like this, she might not have the nerve—

Into the dark, Kally whispered, “You could stay.”

It was silly, really, for her heart to pound so hard. Kaddar had been her husband for months. He had come to her bed more times than she could count. He had seen, and touched and become intimately familiar with, her bare body as many times. Asking him to simply fall asleep with her, particularly when he had already done so—though never on purpose, and every time had left them tentative and strange with the other for hours upon waking—should not make her quake like a maiden on her wedding night. 

(Not that Kally had much experience with that. She had arrived at her marriage bed without practical experience, but plenty of theoretical understanding. How could she do otherwise with honorary aunts as frank as Buri and Alanna? Even her mother had been distressingly candid about the joys and pleasures to be found in marriage.)

The rustling of bedclothes fell silent as Kaddar froze. Whether he had not heard her properly and needed her to repeat herself or he was simply considering his response, Kalasin couldn’t say. All she knew was that she might burst with embarrassment if he truly decided to leave now. 

“Do you want me to stay?” he finally asked, sounding so much more careful than he had in months. At some point, they had stopped mincing their words, making only the most cautious of moves, with one another. Now that she heard it again, Kally desperately wanted it gone.

“Yes,” she said, bold for all the single word came out hushed. It felt wrong to speak any louder when to do so would break the still, insular intimacy of the room. Wrapped in shadows, the shimmering glow of the moon barely drifting through the carved shutters over the windows, there might as well be no palace, no great city with its ancient university, no empire, no world beyond the bed. Just Kaddar and Kalasin.

There was more rustling of bedding and the dip of the mattress as Kaddar settled back down. Not close enough to touch, but she could hear him breathing, smell the cedar and sandalwood he favored when he ever bothered with perfumes. 

“Are you so eager for another round?” he said, taking on that flirty, sensual tone he used when he wanted to tease and rile her. Sometimes, Kally was happy to rise to his bait, and if she could tell whether he meant it or it was just a mask, she would know how to proceed. If she could just see his face, she would have a clue. 

“No. I mean,” she said, cheeks going hot and swinging her back into gratitude for the darkness, “ _y_ _es_ , but that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh?”

“I meant—”

This was ridiculous! Why should she be embarrassed to want to share her bed, in all senses, with her husband? Why was it so much more mortifying to ask for this simple intimacy than to lie with him, give over her body and take from his? Why did it feel like baring more than her very spirit for him to accept or refuse with nothing for her to do but wait and see?

Perhaps because she was in love.

If Kalasin ever expected to truly fall in love with Kaddar, she had not thought it would be the work of a year. When she’d steeled herself to the prospect of her betrothal, she’d known it was a political alliance first and a marriage second. If she was lucky, she would respect Emperor Kaddar, and love or something close would come with time. There were certainly worse foundations in which love could take root. 

To find that it had already bloomed, as glorious and lovely as any of Kaddar's plants, was a surprise, but once she acknowledged it, so many of her feelings suddenly came into brilliant focus. 

Oh, this was more than ridiculous. How had she not known?

Refusing to give in to the ridiculous, Kalasin said, “You should stay the night. You should stay every night.” 

“Every night?”

Only because he sounded far too amused for what was one of the more mortifying moments of her life, Kally snapped, “Unless you irk me too often, in which case, I’m sure the divan in your office is quite—”

“Well,” he laughed, and though his amusement still pricked at her pride, the warm palms he slid across her hips and waist were a satisfactory balm, “then I shall have to endeavor not to irk Your Majesty. Have you any advice for me?”

It was difficult to form coherent thoughts with Kaddar so determinedly caressing every inch of skin he could reach. As she had tried and failed to do, he turned her onto her back, tangling his legs with hers. His mouth returned to her neck and collarbone, and Kally could only cling to his shoulders as his tongue swept across her skin. It was difficult, but Kalasin was nothing if not stubborn.

“Stop goading me in meetings with the Chief Tax Collector.”

“But you tear down his regressive policy proposals so charmingly,” he returned, thumbs sweeping up her sides just to see her shiver.

“Tell Zaimid that he may finally accept my help in the University Healer’s Wing. I know his staff is overdrawn.”

“Do you really wish to discuss my cousin right now?”

Given the way her legs had wrapped around his hips, Kally figured her answer was quite obvious. Still, she liked the rough rumble to his question and the tension in his jaw when she pressed a line of kisses there. 

“Always let me win our races.”

“As if any horse in the empire could touch that beast of yours.”

“Talk to me about your latest experiments in the garden.”

“Gladly,” he breathed, sounding suddenly winded, like her interest in his tiny, growing things was an unasked for blessing. His hands on her turned soft and tender, holding her as if she was some delicacy he couldn’t hope to replace. Gently, he brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “Anything else, empress of my heart?”

She did, in fact, have one last command.

“Kiss me.”

All too willing to please, he surged up to cover her lips with his own. Passion spilled, messy and uncaring of the protocols required of an emperor and empress, though neither could bring themselves to care.

It was only much later, her head resting easily on Kaddar’s chest and arm securely wrapped below his ribs, that Kalasin thought perhaps she should ask for her own advice in keeping him content. Much as she might like the idea of a husband always striving to keep her content, that was no way to build a proper marriage, much less a partnership. 

Opening her mouth to ask—and if her own list culminated as his had, then all the better; they would be tired in the morning, but a hazy kind of contented exhaustion that was invigorating in its own way—she tipped her head back to grin up at Kaddar. 

He was fast asleep. 

Gingerly, she settled back against his side. Kally already knew that waking a man who worked as hard as Kaddar was inadvisable at best. At worst, he might decide that sharing her bed was not worth the disturbances to his rest, and that just would not do. 

So, closing her eyes, she resolved to ask him in the morning. Or, if she forgot amidst all the details and duties of running an empire, sometime later. 

They had, after all, their whole lives before them.


End file.
